


On the Power of the Mind

by Molly A (Johnlocked_and_loaded)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bodice-Ripper, John is a fictional book character, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Sherlock is a hopeless romantic, romance novels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 21:16:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johnlocked_and_loaded/pseuds/Molly%20A
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a comment; “I can’t help but think that eventually, Sherlock buries the book under the bench [in regent’s park] there, and 18 years later, romantic hero John Watson springs from it, fully formed, like Minerva from the forehead of Zeus.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Power of the Mind

**Author's Note:**

> So this story comes to you from a commenter on an Atlin Merrick fic. Atlin (her majesty) had written about Sherlock enjoying gay erotica romance novels (we call them harlequin romances here in the states), and someone had commented, “I can’t help but think that eventually, Sherlock buries the book under the bench [in regent’s park] there, and 18 years later, romantic hero John Watson springs from it, fully formed, like Minerva from the forehead of Zeus.” This, naturally, made me go, “Heeeeeeeeeeey, I could write sum’n like that!” and so I thank you, Mirith Griffin, for being an inspiration for this story, as well as Atlin (god save the fandom queen).

Sherlock Holmes was not a popular child, as you may have guessed. He was smart, too smart for the other kids to like him. Nothing is more valuable to a teenager than being stupid. Stupidity made you popular and fun and people liked laughing with you instead of at you.   
But Sherlock was smart, and unabashedly so. Being that as it was, he didn’t have many, or really even any, friends. He wanted to become intellectual, not just book smart, and so he started reading novels. He tried hard to love Homer, and yearned to yearn for Dickens volumes.   
But he didn’t. He loved the idea of reading the classics, the intelligent books, but instead he just grew bored after a few thousand words. He mocked the novels, thinking to himself that they were too wordy, that clearly there mustn’t have been any good stories back then. That the writers were probably the best in their time, but now literature was so much more advanced and interesting.   
So one Saturday morning, he went to a bookstore in London. His brother was driving to London to go on a date with some professor (“It’s an interview, Sherlock, you wouldn’t understand because you hate anything that involves ambition.”), so Sherlock rode along. He didn’t have his license at the tender age of 16, and he had no interest in getting one (“I’ll just take cabs everywhere once I move out, mother.”).  
He ended up in a small bookseller, with cramped shelves shoved full of sway-backed pocket tomes, the only light filtering in from dusty windows that bordered the street, and a single lamp hung over the head of a cashier with her nose in a book. He rolled through the aisles, tracing delicate fingers over books, occasionally yanking out a novel or a collection of short stories. They all seemed to be too boring, too long, too short, interesting only for a few moments, or too predictable. Finally, he gave up on pretending to be an expert, and deferred to the cashier.   
“Yes, love?” The middle aged woman asked, setting her romance novel down.   
“I’m looking for books to read.” Sherlock wasn’t one to beat around the bush, even then.  
“Oh, I’m sorry, we’ve none of that here,” the lady smirked.   
Sherlock sighed.   
“Anything in particular you’re looking for?” Her flabby forearm came down to rest on the checkout desk in front of her.   
“Something interesting,” Sherlock replied. Upon her raised eyebrow, he continued, “Maybe something… Exciting, I suppose. Anything that’s not the classics.”  
The woman laughed, “Yeah, get that a lot from kids nowadays, so tired o’ the old dusties. Can’t stand them myself,” The woman leaned back in her chair. “Well I tell you, I love these.”  
She waved her romance novel, one with a greasy chested man clutching a woman in period attire, in the air, thumb holding her place. “Where might I find those?” Sherlock inquired.   
“You really want one?” Sherlock resisted rolling his eyes again. “They’re over there, round that corner. Whole two aisles of ‘em.”  
Sherlock followed her directions, and looked through the titles on the shelves. Almost all of them were exactly like one the clerk had been holding; set in some past time (No doubt to be portrayed inaccurately, thought Sherlock), and with incredibly buff men on the covers. Though Sherlock would admit the men were good-looking, they looked all the same, and so generic, he couldn’t be attracted to them. Until he turned a corner, with a sign and a little arrow that read, “Homosexual romance” on the shelf. His eyes brightened. The day may not be a loss after all!   
He pulled out a book at random, only to find a large bosomed woman mouthing at the neck of another woman on the cover. His nose wrinkled, and he turned about face to the shelf opposite. Ah, here were the books he just might need. He scanned the titles, some large, dramatic. Some were taken up almost completely by the author’s name, probably someone famous in this field, though he didn’t recognize them. He was about to just start grabbing random ones and getting ready to pay, when he spotted a small tome shoved in the corner of a shelf. He flopped down on his knees, and dug it out with some difficulty from where it was hidden behind a full-size book.   
The binding was olive drab, and read ‘Of the Fifth North Umberland Fusiliers’ and Sherlock immediately took to the man on the cover. He was not bare chested, he had on a practical army uniform, though with a stethoscope wrapped around his neck, and the sleeves pushed up to reveal strong and tan arms. He was standing in front of a background that was one part army hospital, fading into one part of an air ship, and then lastly a fluttering union jack in the upper right corner. The man himself was… Well, handsome. Sherlock was attracted to everything about him. He had this gorgeous army hair style, blond, with streaks of gray (Sherlock would never admit it, but he was quite a bit more fond of men older than him than of boys his own age), and he was standing with his legs slightly apart, fists on his hips. Sherlock made himself stop admiring the man on the cover, and flipped the book over to read the synopsis.   
“Captain John Watson is strong, yet gentle, tough yet kind, small yet has a huge heart. He always believed he fancied women, until he was transferred to Afghanistan to continue his work as an Army Doctor. There he treated wounds and infections, and braved desert storms and loneliness alike. But will his greatest challenge be surviving the war, or figuring out how he fell in love with a man on his deathbed?”  
Sherlock was in love with the story already. Captain John H. Watson, army doctor and lonely, confused man. He sounded so wonderful; Sherlock couldn’t possibly wait to get to know him better.   
So Sherlock purchased the book. He read it while walking up to the counter, he read it while paying for it, and he read it while walking out of the store. He continued walking and reading until he found himself in Regent’s park, and was at page 113. He stopped to sit on a bench, and then continued reading. As he read, he fell in love. Deeply, deeply in love with John Watson, the tough and gentle doctor. The sensitive man with trust issues, who suffered rejection and a bullet wound, and survived it all in the name of his love for Sergeant McKennen, his patient. Sherlock gasped when John finally realized his feelings and kissed the man, and cried when the Sergeant died, still holding John’s hand. And he cried most of all when John was discharged, and the book ended with John sitting alone in a flat, missing his lover.   
Sherlock had never felt so strongly about another person, albeit a character. He may have been getting strange looks from passerby, but he didn’t notice. He was so deeply wrapped up in the story that as soon as he read the last words, he flipped right back to the first page and started reading it again.   
He was on his third re-reading when a dog disturbed him. Some child had lost the leash to her Labrador, and the dog was now digging a hole next to the bench Sherlock was sitting on, spraying dirt up on him. The girl caught the lab after he had already made a sizeable divot in the grass. Sherlock glared at the girl as she dragged her pet away. He almost went right back to reading (he was at John and Cary McKennen’s first kiss), except that while his attention was diverted from his book, he heard a familiar voice. Mycroft was strolling towards him, chatting to some professor about a job. Sherlock panicked.   
Sherlock knew that if Mycroft saw him reading a cheap romance novel (the gay part may not particularly bother him; Sherlock was pretty sure Mycroft already knew where his attractions lay) the teasing would be merciless. “Oh, Sherlock, the genius intellectual, I suppose you were just reading that for research about hormones, were you?”, he’d never survive a week, let alone the lifetime of which Mycroft would use to hang it over his head. Sherlock took immediate action, and snapped the book shut. He dropped it into the hole the dog had dug, and used his foot to scoot dirt over it.   
Just as Sherlock was covering the last corner, Mycroft spotted him. “Ah, there you are, brother!” He called, using the formal, loving tone that was reserved for interactions in front of others.  
“Mycroft, dear sister!” Sherlock tossed back mockingly.   
Mycroft’s fake smile turned a bit sour. He and the professor approached Sherlock, and Sherlock stood to shake the man’s hand.   
“Well, what a delightful meeting we’ve had...” Sherlock tuned Mycroft out as he glanced yearningly down at the book under the ground. He only caught the tail end of Mycroft’s dialogue when he said, “Come along, Sherlock, we must be going now.”  
Sherlock felt like crying again. The book that had made him feel so alive was now buried in the ground, and he had no chance of retrieving it with extreme humiliation. Sherlock just sighed deeply and followed his brother through Regent’s Park, and down the sidewalk of Baker Street, which coincidently, was the street on which John Watson had his apartment in the book. Sherlock scanned the numbers until he saw 221B, and felt a little comforted. He could tell by the folds in the curtains that nobody lived there, but he felt so hopeful that the address actually existed. Though he’ll tell you he’s just looking at real estate, over the next years of his life, he would look in the windows of 221B every time he passed, in the vain hope of fantasy becoming truth.   
The day after Sherlock left London, and the amazing book, behind, there was a great rain. A torrential rain that didn’t stop for 72 hours, a system that roared over Britain and drenched London. Sherlock knew that even if he went back to the city, his book would be buried and sodden.   
To Sherlock Holmes, his book was dead. Little did he know, that rain didn’t kill the book… Instead, it made the story grow.   
Sherlock, as I mentioned earlier, didn’t have any friends. But after that day, John Watson became his constant companion. John accompanied him to school, and chastised him for making fun of the other kids (because John was a good and kind man). John held deep conversations with him about chemistry and science and all the good things in Sherlock’s life. When the kids were mean, and their words spiteful, and their hands sharp, John was there. When Sherlock was weak and tired, so tired, of living, John was there. John was super imposed on a pillow, and clutched to Sherlock’s chest. John’s hand gripped his as he walked through the halls of college, though he was invisible to everyone else, just like Sherlock felt. When Sherlock took drugs and died a bit and failed, John was still there, and Sherlock felt him so much more strongly when chemicals ran in his veins.   
All of this hurt Sherlock, and made it hard for him to breathe sometimes. He kissed boys who were shorter than him, kissed boys with sandy blond hair, kissing other people only to know what it would be like to kiss John. He imagined John’s hands, soft and strong running over him. At first, it was sexual, and so heady a feeling that Sherlock imagined it every night.   
But too soon, Sherlock’s hands didn’t feel like John’s, and Sherlock cried. He hated when he remembered the truth; that John wasn’t real, that he would never know what John actually felt like. He tried very hard to date others, to love people other than the one person who had loved him unconditionally. But he started noticing people only for how they were like John, what traits he could salvage from his fantasy.   
He grew out of drugs and grew out of college, but John followed him still. He would laugh at something John said, only to realize he was in a supermarket, and that people were giving him looks. When this happened, he just buried his face in John’s neck and chuckled quietly, because the looks made John giggle. He invented his own job, and worked solving crimes, something that calmed his mind when John couldn’t. He tried to find a flat share, but realized no one could put up with him.   
He solved a case and helped an elderly woman, who thanked him dearly, “If you need somewhere to stay, I’m landlady for a few flats, you’re perfectly welcome, Mister Holmes.”  
Sherlock smiled at her, this was just what he needed, “Where are the flats, Mrs. Hudson? I just so happen to be in the market for lodging right now.”  
“I own the 221s, on Baker Street.”  
Sherlock froze. Mrs. Hudson prattled about how she could let rent go for a few weeks, and how close it was to the best parts of London, but Sherlock couldn’t listen for his life, and interrupted her, “Is 221B available?”  
Mrs. Hudson nodded, and Sherlock’s face almost split in half from smiling. Maybe this was just what he needed to liven up the fantasy of John, to bring back those tingly feelings he’d had when he first read about him. “I’ll take it, Mrs. Hudson, if you don’t mind.”  
Mrs. Hudson fussed over price and such but Sherlock wasn’t listening. He was smiling at John, who was grinning right back, “We’re going to be in my flat, then?” Sherlock couldn’t answer him aloud while Mrs. Hudson was there, but he gave his fantasy a small nod and a huge smile.   
John wasn’t sure how he ended up on the bench in Regent’s park. One minute, he was in his flat, mourning Cary, the next, he was here.   
Guess I fell asleep… And ended up on a bench in the park? John shook his head at himself, and stood up to start walking back to his flat. He followed the familiar path from Regent’s over to Baker Street, and pulled his key out to unlock the door.  
He climbed the steps, and froze when he saw his front door ajar. John’s face hardened. He took a moment to wistfully imagine his gun, which he knew was in his nightstand drawer, and which would certainly be a comfort in this situation. As it was, he curled his fists and nudged the door open with his shoulder and stepped in to confront whoever had broken into his flat.   
There was a man, not robbing him, or even moving. He was lying on his back on a leather sofa John had never seen in his flat before. His eyes were closed, and hands steepled under his chin. “Did Lestrade send you?” The man asked in a melted- chocolate baritone.  
“I’m sorry, what?” John had never been in a more confusing situation in his life. There was a man in his flat, on furniture he didn’t remember buying, and asking why he was here.   
“I could tell by your footsteps you weren’t Mrs. Hudson, nor any of Lestrade’s men that I recognize, you haven’t attacked me yet, and so I ask, did Lestrade send you?” The man still hadn’t opened his eyes, and John noticed a nicotine patch poking out of his sleeve.   
“No. I don’t know anyone named Lestrade. Now will you please tell me why the bloody hell you’re in my apartment?”  
The man’s eyes snapped open. He sat up straight, and looked directly at John. Now that he’d gotten a better look at him, John realized the man was actually quite attractive. “You,” the man breathed.   
“Uh…?” John replied intelligently.   
The man’s face settled into something vaguely displeased, but also very pleased, which John was struggling to interpret before the stranger spoke, “Well, that’s it then. I’ve officially gone mad, certifiable. I’m deluded and hallucinating. My childhood hero and imaginary friend has come to life in my head is now standing in my flat. I’m mad,” The man stood, and walked over to stand directly in front of John, who gulped. “Might as well enjoy it,” the dark-haired man shrugged, and grabbed John’s waist to bring him up and kiss him.   
John wasn’t quite sure what one should do in this situation. He stood frozen for a minute as the man lavished a quite passionate kiss on him, one that seemed to communicate that they had known each other before the previous few minutes. Or that the stranger was trying to eat John’s tongue.   
The man pulled away from the unresponsive John, and gave him a puzzled look. “Why aren’t you kissing me?”  
“I don’t know you!” John spluttered, “I don’t even know your name!”  
“Sherlock,” Sherlock said. His arms were still clutching John to his chest, and were uncomfortably tight. “What do you mean, you don’t know me?”  
“I’ve never met you in my life,” John stated decisively.   
Sherlock blinked, his bright eyes no longer filled with passion, but now calculating, and started muttering, “So we ignore our history and assume that you’ve just departed from the plot? How interesting. Why? Why would my brain reset you to not remember me?”  
John was very confused, “Excuse me, I don’t think your brain can very well ‘reset’ me, thank you.”  
Sherlock snorted, “Of course it can. You’re just my fantasy; I can do whatever I want with you. Look, I can make you believe you grew up as a circus performer,” He claimed, raising an eyebrow at John.   
“Oh, wow, why am I not at the circus?” John asked in a mystified voice, making Sherlock smirk. “Oh wait, that’s right, because I’ve never performed at a circus and I’ve just come back from Afghanistan. Sorry to burst your bubble.”  
Sherlock frowned, “Why aren’t you complying with my every whim?”   
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because I’m a human being and not a robot or something?”  
Sherlock stepped back. He folded his hands under his chin again and looked at John critically. “But why?”  
Before John could give another angry answer, Mrs. Hudson appeared at the door, “Sherlock, dear, this package arrived; it says it’s from the morgue! How dreadful-” At this point Mrs. Hudson noticed John standing there in civilian clothes with his cane by his side. “Oh, hello. I’ve never seen you here before, are you one of Lestrade’s men he always sends stomping up here?”   
“What? No, Mrs. Hudson, I live here! Don’t you remember me?” John was astonished. It seemed like he’d tumbled into an alternate universe when he’d woken up on that bench.   
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mrs. Hudson looked uncomfortable. “You’re right, Sherlock doesn’t bring many people back to the flat, I’m sorry for mistaking you for a policeman.”   
John turned to glare over at Sherlock, “Many people back to the flat? I’m sorry, what were you doing with policemen stomping around in my home?”  
“John, please, it’s not just your flat. I live here,” Sherlock stated, still visibly admiring John’s body.   
“Oh, it’s seems I’ve walked in on a little domestic, I’ll just leave the package here.” Mrs. Hudson scurried back down the stairs.   
“Listen, what makes you think that-” Sherlock held a hand up to John before he could continue the tirade he was no doubt about to start.   
“Let’s go to dinner,” Sherlock said, with a ring of finality.   
“What? No, we need to discuss-” Sherlock cut him off with, “On the way there. We’re walking, its right down the street.”  
“I- I don’t- I just wanted to-” John huffed out a breath of air. Nothing seemed to make sense for him today, and this strange man that had infiltrated his flat with experiments and a sofa and his huge presence was now asking him out to dinner. John sighed, “Yeah, just let me go get my nicer jacket from my bedroom… In my flat.” John couldn’t help emphasizing that to Sherlock, who seemed to think he was the primary owner or something.   
John came down from his bedroom to find this strange, attractive, mad man waiting at the door, wearing a long, dramatic coat. He gestured for John to go first, and then walked beside him on the stairs. “Your limp is psychosomatic you know,” Sherlock pointed out to him as he held John’s forearm to help him down.   
“Yeah, alright genius, but tell me how I ended up in this weird world instead of alone in my flat, like usual.”  
Sherlock got a far-away look in his eyes as they took the last step down onto Baker Street. “I don’t know,” He stated, and then brought his gaze down to John, his eyes filled with wonder and happiness. “But I’m ever so thankful you could make it.”


End file.
